The Three Presidencies? Legislative Position Taking in Support of the President on Domestic, Foreign, and Homeland Security Policies in the 107th Congress (2001-02)

Abstract

Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, a new and salient issue dimension at the nexus of domestic and foreign policies emerged in U.S. politics: homeland security. Given this changed policy agenda in Washington, we suggest that there are no longer two presidencies, but instead three presidencies: the domestic policy presidency, the foreign policy presidency, and the homeland security presidency. We examine the three presidencies hypothesis during the 107th Congress (2001-02) by looking at legislative statements about the president communicated to constituents by members of the House. Lindsay and Steger (1993) have noted that research on the two presidencies needs to move beyond roll call analysis, and we heed their call by utilizing a new and unique data set of franked mailings sent to constituents. Specifically, we answer the following research questions: (1) Did legislators in the 107th Congress more frequently mention the president's policies on homeland security policy, domestic policy, or foreign policy in their franked mailings to constituents? (2) Was there a partisan divide in support of the president across these three policy dimensions in legislators' franked mailings? (3) Do positions of presidential support articulated in franked mailings translate into actual roll call support? We find that there are three policy areas in which members of Congress mention the president when communicating with their constituents, and that legislators frequently discuss both domestic and homeland security policies of the president, though not foreign policy. By using this unique data source to address these research questions, we are able to develop a fuller sense of legislators' perceptions of the salience of particular issues in their districts and the relationships of the perceptions to presidential support during the 107th Congress.